i think you have to justify it more than just popularity. What can be done to actually fix them?

A lot of the skills are quite useful on that list. Forest Sanctuary is a very powerful skill. Just because it's not commonly used in arsenals doesn't mean it should be made even more powerful.

A lot of the shields listed benefit from having cheaper costs than other skills. They can let you follow up with more costly moves or still provide protection after you just used a costly move. They can also work in Reduce Entropy and Irregular Rhythm arsenals.

As far as fixes, it seems like there are only a few options available:

1. Change the Cost2. Change the Use Amount3. Change the Duration4. Change the Power Level of Skill 5. Change Default Homing?

I think some skills are just "doomed" to obscurity

Take Timer Mine. It kind of blows so I'd say make it 0 cost. Is it going to get picked up much more? I doubt it. Maybe in 0 cost decks it provides an extra unique move to consider at least. I don't think lower the cost to 0 will be bad but it won't get that much more use. What's left to do with it? Raise it's power? That's when you get into dangerous territory with it. Like if it did 6 or 7 damage people might start using it more , but I think having the skill at that stregth feels like a bad idea for the gameplay.

I don't know what else you can do with Abyss. If you make it 3 use per abyss, you may make other Capsule eraser skills less useful.

Got to be careful with changes. Look how freaking annoying Venom Fang is in 1.0 with 3 strength and 2 cost. The change to 2 strength and 3 cost balanced the skill out.

You make a good point. After reading your post, it would likely be easier said than done to tweak some of these skills and not make the game worse. I still don't understand why Ice Storm is single use. Rain attacks are easy to dodge most of the time, and it could just work the same as Ice Sword and have the cost increase with each use. The damage would probably need to be lowered if it was changed that way, but I think it would make more sense than being single use. That ones always bothered me and comes to mind first for some reason.

Bloodpool wrote:You make a good point. After reading your post, it would likely be easier said than done to tweak some of these skills and not make the game worse. I still don't understand why Ice Storm is single use. Rain attacks are easy to dodge most of the time, and it could just work the same as Ice Sword and have the cost increase with each use. The damage would probably need to be lowered if it was changed that way, but I think it would make more sense than being single use. That ones always bothered me and comes to mind first for some reason.

I thought it should become a 3 use skill but I like your idea better. Maybe with a drop in strength as you said.

I know the PR said "Improvements to game balance". Hopefully we'll get a list of skill changes, like we did last time (vanilla to 1.10, 1.10 to 1.20) for this release. Maybe some will get boosted? Some were boosted in previous updates.

not so sure we should just go and change every skill (i.e. optimization) just because we arent inclined to like it, use it, or find it annoying and what not, when there are many solutions already built into the game... examples being: orb for erase and judgement,crush,return to nature for optimization or memory lapse so why change what many believe isnt already broken and is used frequently by the whole pd community?

I would then see myself using these skills if they were improved like this.

I don't know, I've had better luck hitting with Muramasa Blade than Vacuum Slash. True Muramasa does look a little different from Muramasa Blade so I'm not 100% sure how it holds up against Vacuum Slash. I think making the life penalty to 2 would make it more usable whether it's got Vacuum Slash accuracy or not. (I've had a lot of ridiculous Vac Slash misses/dodges online )

Fast Wave would be pretty ridiculous as a multi use skill. People would have to be second guessing it at every point in the match as you can use it pretty much anytime for one aura. Not sure if it could go 5 damage or that players should just be left to buffing the strength themselves.

Celestial Ship's power level makes extra uses hard to justify. If you even had 2 uses of them, it's probably too easy to pair with Paralyze. Then again it's a got a life penalty and pretty bad accuracy, so I don't know...

well that being said lets not change it too much now we might regret it in the long run even just to change the meta in my opinion is solved by adding more intriguing skills to the game more so than fixing them not that that's a bad idea per se but i'm saying be careful is all lest we not change the game we know and love too much...

jokerz2099 wrote:well that being said lets not change it too much now we might regret it in the long run even just to change the meta in my opinion is solved by adding more intriguing skills to the game more so than fixing them not that that's a bad idea per se but i'm saying be careful is all lest we not change the game we know and love too much...

Making adjustments while ensuring the game remains balanced is going to be incredibly difficult. I think I find myself somewhere between you and Revan: you want to make a spicy metagame where a diversity of strategies are allowed (to Revan's point), but you also don't want to contort the game so much that it loses its charm (your point). Playtesting is going to be vital to strike that balance.

That and, hey, the slight online lag made a lot of skills very easy to dodge on XBL that are considerably harder on console/split screen. If the lag changes, some skills might see a bump solely because of better technology. That might also become evident in playtesting. This comes with the caveat that I'm pretty tech-illiterate [I'd love someone in the know to confirm/correct this notion.]

It's been some time Since i played but when i do get the chance to hook up the old boxes and play the one thing i think that could help is Stage and Character tweaking i.e. more stages new ones maybe tweak some of the Monsters in the game so they aren't so static and un-usable like the phasing maybe fix that so it actual can dodge things or pass through them also back to stages maybe make some of them less clattered and more playable or how about adding a copy of the stages not in their post apocalyptic style like a palace neat and clean before the tree or sein before the damage and instability or highway less contorted with more vechicles on it to show it was once used just some ideas i toyed around with i thought could bring something back to the game because we all hate playing in one stage all night